


Moonscape

by sardonic_symphonic



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Dystopia, F/M, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 08:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6367915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sardonic_symphonic/pseuds/sardonic_symphonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Their landscape is miles long, marred with craters of Befores and ridges of Afters. But now, separated by standard human suffering and the gluttonous machines, Betty feels as though she’s never been closer to him.</i>
</p><p>Thirteen years after the birth of the Hulk, Bruce Banner and Betty Ross cross paths once again in a new, hardened world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonscape

Their landscape is miles long, marred with craters of Befores and ridges of Afters. But now, separated by standard human suffering and the gluttonous machines, Betty feels as though she’s never been closer to him.

Bruce Banner is standing in a flock of lab coats, in the aisle between assembly lines #29 and #30. He plays his part well, betrayed only by bulging knuckles around his clipboard. His flickering gaze and shifting weight can easily be mistaken for impatience, and Betty hopes that she can still lay claim to knowing better. But—what is it?—thirteen years is a short infinity, enough to cycle through a devastating revolution, a coup, and legislation so strangling that she’s witnessed too many friends die of oxygen deprivation.

At first, the woman feels nothing. She isn’t transfixed, though. In fact, she can’t prevent herself from slipping on the teal smock, perfunctorily lifting her hair from the neckline and pinning the endless identification tags to her front.

“Ross,” grunts her supervisor, a strange concoction of biogeography expert and part-time sadist. “Any day now.”

The “sorry” also comes of its own accord because the throng of lab coats is approaching and she can swear he’s noticed her.

Rationality, for the first time in ages, fails. Because it isn’t overwhelming relief that comes over her, nor is it an episode of self consciousness pertaining to her current weight (or lack thereof). Looking across that span between them, Betty is terribly, horribly scared to meet his eyes. She is scared of seeing cold, clinical callousness where something warmer used to dwell.

“You can expect to see a fine on your door tomorrow if you don’t pick up the pace, Dr. Ross.”

“I’m going, Doctor.” She turns to face her, a glowing, blue-veined Dr. Dorine Almanza. The movement takes far more effort than expected.

She glares at Betty pointedly before beginning in the direction of the exit. The factories make her nervous, that much is clear. A scientist is most at home in her lab, after all. But her pace is noticeably slow enough to ensure that Betty can catch up. It’s almost endearing.

Rough around the edges, maybe, but Almanza is fond of Betty, a fact she has been aware of some time ago. The two bear every expected formality, and in exchange for Betty’s knowledge in epigenetics, Almanza disregards her class C human status. She even escorts her from the factory to the laboratory for conversational, comfort-related reasons. A perfect example of a symbiotic relationship.

Betty can only take a few dozen steps before her feet become part of the cement floor. There’s a sound in her throat too, a sort of plea for just another moment, but the lab coats are practically on top of her, and it dies mid-formation.

He isn’t here. And he isn’t alive. And Betty has to glance over her shoulder just to make sure.

The sterile coats barely regard her, passing in their rainbow of colors and textures. Her throat so caught in the anticipation, she forgets to breathe. Straining her eyes against the darkness of every uncertainty, every clouding fact, she finally fixes her sights on the petrifying truth:

Meeting a reconstructed skeleton, stripped of compassion and repainted in new found superiority, would be far worse than loving a corpse martyred in the waters of time and damned sentimentalism. Betty didn’t wasn’t ready to lose her fantasy. If only she had the choice.

Bruce Banner skimmed her shoulder in an almost brusque fashion. Or perhaps it only registered that way. She’s reduced to a paper doll of herself, the years cutting bits and pieces away from her person.

Despite a fully aroused peripheral nervous system, she doesn’t catch any of it. She can’t pick out his smell, the texture of his lab  coat; a good look at his face and the mapping lines across it, or perhaps none at all; or a chance to see how many grays were in his hair. There is just a swelling of her heart screaming in her ears.

Bruce’s gesture is clearly deliberate.

“Ross.”

The roar of machines. Almanza’s hand was around Betty’s upper arm, leading her towards the exit to the adjoining research center.

”What the hell was that about?”

She doesn’t answer. Fortunately, Almanza doesn’t expect her to, because Betty can only focus on the jagged-edged slip of paper that has appeared in the pocket of her smock. The script zigs and zags with violent vigor, curling upwards toward the left.

_Betty,_

_Address is on the back. I’m sorry._  
_You don’t have to see me._

_Mr. Green_

 

* * *

 

 

It was a question that kids used to ask one another, a personality quiz kind of thing.

_“If you could have one superpower, what would it be?”_

Betty can picture the playground at her preschool, the Catholic school’s dining hall, her dormitory, the teen gossip magazines about boy bands and TV shows her dad wouldn't let her watch. They are all tinged with rosy nostalgia, and yet she can't help but wonder.

Why did nobody see it coming?

When her school friends asked her about superpowers and magic, Betty always went for the most clichéd response. She wanted to fly.

Leaving her housing block, the woman decides that invisibility is a much wiser ability in this new world of eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

“I need a pass.”

Almanza’s meticulous fingers, glowing a little brighter after her first cup of coffee, maintained their staccato beats. Both she and her loyal assistant are acutely aware of the lab’s vacant state. “This have something to do with your beau?”

“An old friend, actually.” Betty strikes her hands into her pockets, dry, calloused skin against the fabric. “We've got unfinished business.”

“And you're all out for the year, yeah?”

“They cut my supply down to just about three. It's better than prison but works to the same effect.”

“It's not completely off the table if you do something stupid, though. Prison,” states Almanza, sparing Betty a stoic glance before returning to her computer. “And I need this report finished by next week.”

“I'll be out for no more than a few hours.”

“Doing nothing that could be construed as suspicious?”

“I'm a little too old for protesting nowadays. I've lost my rebellious streak.”

At that, Almanza lets out a chuckle. Her voice is a little hoarse and Betty is sure to remember the rare sound. “You have money for me?”

“How does forty sound?”

“Sounds like he's a very good friend.”

Betty grits her teeth only a little, clamping her molars on the memories that have no business in professional settings. Bribes are also frowned upon, but by this point, she has nearly forgotten. “You'll have it tomorrow.”

“Good thing I’m a patient woman.” Almanza pushes herself backwards and the rolling chair doesn't put up a fight. She smooths out her lab coat, shaking her head only a little. “Remind me to sign the forms on your way out.”

Betty allows gratitude to wash over her face and she realizes how long it's been since her muscles made such a dramatic gesture. “Thank you.”

Almanza only shrugs as she gets up. “I’m of the firm, very unscientific belief that everything happens for a reason. And, statistically speaking, the odds of you finding this friend by chance are staggering.” She swipes her identification through the reader against the monitor in a swift, self-assured gesture and Betty guessed she’s not being sarcastic. “Who am I to get in the way of some bigger plan?”

Betty doesn't believe in fate or luck; she believes in God on a less than frequent basis, an old habit from her grade school days. She certainly doesn't believe in Bruce, or even her memory of him.

But she's curious and desperate for a break in the monotony of the life she should be more thankful for. Desperation is a potent enough alcohol to get just about anyone teetering into the abyss.

Betty leaves for the address straight after work, armed with her questionably obtained pass, the address, and a Beretta M9 that she definitely isn't supposed to have.

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce—the man she thought she’d marry, the man she thinks about too much, the man she thought a ghost—opens the door only after the air becomes insufferably pregnant with tension. One glance through the peephole and there they are, all physical boundaries erased and replaced with the unspeakable sort.

He speaks first, driven by the caffeine of guilt, “I didn't think you would come.”

His apartment smells like cheap air freshener and Indian food. The amount of tofu makhani he's making suggests otherwise.

Betty delves into his eyes, trying to reassure herself that he’s still him, and, looking briefly at her feet, that she's still herself.

Before she can come up with an appropriate response, he reaches forwards as though to tap on her shoulder with clear urgency, but he never makes the contact. Instead, his hand hovers over the span of those thirteen years, a limbo he cannot bear to touch. “Here. Security will lap around any minute now.”

She steps inside and he asks if she's hungry. Betty doesn't want to be the charity case she resembles at the moment, but the curry smells good and her microwave can't hold a candle to the meal he obviously is making for two. He flashes a nervous smile before stepping into the kitchen.

Bruce’s apartment is double the size of her own shoe box. Perhaps a little more. She has a limited perspective sitting on the beat up sofa in his living room which she soon realizes is the same sofa from his graduate school days. The discernment is jarring enough to distract her from observing much else, but the lighting is sparse and dark, the curtains drawn; there isn’t much to see. But things are neat in a controlled chaos sort of way.

Betty can only feel numb, waiting, like a potted plant set in the wrong home.

For all his faults, Bruce hurries dinner along. He arrives with two steaming plates in less than five minutes. He refuses all of her offers to set the coffee table and counters with a proposition to open a bottle of wine. Betty doesn’t remember saying yes, but he hands her a glass of something “far too expensive” for his tastes. It doesn’t make her feel like less of a burden.

The first thing he asks her, brow furrowed in the utmost seriousness: “You okay?”

“Okay?” Betty takes a moment to swallow her tofu, trying to conceal the fact that she has just burnt her tongue.

“Yeah. Okay.” Taking a swig of wine, Bruce swirls the concern around in his mouth as though it’ll help him articulate. “No one talks about it, but I’ve been through the C neighborhoods—the _blocks_ , whatever—a couple of times and the standard of living is shameful. And the factory, Jesus…”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m not in an assembly line for more than two hours. I worked my way into a lab. My degrees aren’t going to complete waste.”

His fork clinks against the plate when he sets it down so his gaze can be as imploring as possible. _Hand me your fears_ , it says, _give me your doubts and your pains and your regrets and I’ll handle them with care._ And above all else, it screams apology after apology, begging for a forgiveness that Betty cannot comprehend.

She can hardly process their proximity, the angle that their knees form, pointing towards one another. It would be so easy to lean forwards and feel Bruce Banner in that small capacity. It would be so easy to unlock the the chest within her rib cage, to remove every preserved memory and hand it over, to unload. And she wants to. She needs to.

But Betty has forgotten the key somewhere at home. And it’s still difficult to look at his face, washed with stones of age, lined. And maybe she’s not alone in that minuscule struggle.

Bruce clasps his hands and leans backwards. “Look, I didn’t mean to imply anything, or, well, to intrude on your life. I just want you to know you have a—” Friend? He chokes the word down, whatever it is “—you have resources. Whatever you need, whatever I can get you, I will. No questions, no payment necessary.”

Another silence in which they compete for the title of Best Wine Glass Fiddler. Bruce wins.

“How do you feel about getting drunk?” asks Betty.

“I feel like I should go get another bottle or two.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested in commissioning me for a piece of writing, be it fanfiction or otherwise, please send me a message. 
> 
> Disclaimer: Tags are subject to change depending on where this story goes. I wouldn't be surprised to see a General Thaddeus Ross or a Tony Stark in there eventually. Dorine Almanza is an original character. (Also: go women in STEM!)
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
